AQW 7477/22-27 Written question to the Minister of Education
To ask the Minister of Education (i) how many applications for a statement of special educational needs exceeded the 26 week statutory time limit; (ii) how long these assessments took; and (iii) the reasons for delay, for each year since 2020.
Asked by Nick Mathison MLA on 26 February 2024
- Answered
- Written
- After due date
- Tabled
- 26 February 2024
- Answer due by
- 12 March 2024
- Answered
- 22 March 202425 days after tabling
- Department
- Department of Education
- Priority question
- No
Answer
In answer to part (i) and part (ii) of your question, the Education Authority (EA) has advised that as of 29 February 2024:
| Year Ending | Number of Statements Over 26 Weeks for Completion | Number of Statements Between 27-40 Weeks for Completion | Number of Statements Over 40 weeks for Completion |
| 31 March 2020 | 583 | 294 | 314 |
| 31 March 2021 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 31 March 2022 | 39 | 39 | 1 |
| 31 March 2023 | 130 | 114 | 22 |
| Year to Date 29 February 2024 | 121 | 77 | 43 |
The EA has advised that any reasons for delay that would sit outside of noted ‘statutory exceptions’ are not available and would require manual checking of each file.
Any delays within the statutory process are wholly unacceptable. It is for this reason that there is a dedicated workstream on statementing under the End to End (E2E) Review of Special Educational Needs (SEN) to ensure that the department understands any reason for delay and to seek out early actions for improvement of this process for children, young people and their families.